Samuel Huneke’s recent book receives prestigious prize

Samuel Huneke’s recent book receives prestigious prize

Samuel Huneke’s recent book, States of Liberation: Gay Men between Dictatorship and Democracy in Cold War Germany was just awarded the Smith Award for the best book in European history from the European History Section of the Southern Historical Association. 

The Smith Award is named for Professor Charles E. Smith (1906-1959), who taught ancient, medieval, English History, and Renaissance and Reformation at Louisiana State University and served as Dean from 1934 until his untimely death in 1959. The Smith Prize recognizes the best book published in European history by a member of the Section or a faculty member of a Southern college or university, or by a Southern press. This year's recipient is Samuel Clowes Huneke for his book, States of Liberation, which was published by the University of Toronto Press. The Prize Committee described the book as follows: 

States of Liberation is a deeply researched, beautifully written study of gay men in the two German states after 1945. Huneke's sensitive attention to sources and engagement with larger debates in the scholarly literature allows him to craft an elegant argument that highlights the entangled development of two postwar societies. He calls attention to the ‘idiosyncratic, contested, and incomplete’ process of gay liberation in Germany after reunification and raises fundamental questions about the persistence of intolerance in the contemporary world.”